Born in Maribor in 1955, Zoran Hochstätter graduated from the camera department of the Academy of Theater and Film Arts of the University of Zagreb. Since the end of the 70s, he has been shooting short, documentary, industrial and commercial films. From 1983 to 2023, he worked as a director of photography on 49 feature films.

He moved to the United States in the mid-1980s, but continued to spread his skills as a cinematographer on both sides of the Ocean.

As a DoP he worked mostly with the Slovenian director Boris Jurjaševič, with whom he collaborated on Blanka Kolak’s Love (1987, Viba Film), The Queen of Hearts (1991, E-Motion film) and Blues for Sara (1993, Casablanca), among others. Hochstätter’s first feature film was Franci Slak’s Eva (1983, Viba Film).

Among many feature films he made in the USA the most acclaimed were Slaves to the Underground directed by Kristine Peterson, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlinale in 1997, and The Last Best Sunday directed by Don Most, which won the Best Feature Award at the FF Telluride in 1999. 

His last film was the comedy Young, Sexy & Dead by Philip Anderton, made in 2023.

From 2005 to 2010 Zoran Hochstätter was the president of the Slovene Society of Cinematographers (ZFS).